For the last two weeks, I've missed my newsletter.
GAH. I was doing so well! After a year of inconsistent writing, I finally found a newsletter format and cadence that worked for me. It became my favorite part of my week. I've enjoyed my newsletter so much more than shoving my thoughts into perfectly formatted posts to feed the LinkedIn algorithm.
But then, my contract (finally) picked up.
ICYMI, I'm back in big tech as a contract UX Researcher. I'm running a research program for a VR headset operating system. Typically, I collect data biweekly, every Thursday and Friday, with the following week dedicated to report writing. It's a much faster pace than academia, but still manageable for me.
That is, manageable until I had to run two studies simultaneously... due to holidays and researcher schedules, I had an entire week of data collection followed by a single workday to finish one of the reports. It was the tightest deadline I'd faced during my 3 years in industry. But, I did it! My team was incredibly appreciative. I was feeling good about my new role.
What could possibly go wrong?
That same week, big tech was all over the news. For all the wrong reasons. Among other things, the media noticed a new sentence in Meta's "hateful content" policies, explaining the one instance in which hate speech would now be allowed:
We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.
As a queer person, you can imagine how this felt. That same week, DEI initiatives were killed and thousands of employees were slated to be fired for "poor performance" - this "non-regrettable attrition" is scheduled to be an annual occurrence.
It's been a long month.
I seriously doubt I can stay in big tech, not long-term anyway. I feel the same emotions I felt in academia: the injustice and unfairness of it all. I couldn't fix academia, and I can't fix corporate America either.
There has to be another way. Or perhaps, another "why".
"Why" did we get here?
I first saw Start With Why on a coffee table of a Detroit AirBnB. The book was nearly 15 years old, worn heavily at the edges, and contained a simple idea that I still think about:
Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care? People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.
This is the fundamental problem with certain tech companies.
For example, Meta's stated mission is "to build the future of human connection." It's a mission I do believe in. I'd love to build devices that allow me to connect with long distance loved ones. Watching a virtual movie with my family, but it feels like we're in the same movie theater? That's pretty cool. Mixed Reality has many important use cases for healthcare, education, and accessibility too. That's what I want to build.
I wouldn't say the execution of that mission has been flawless.
Unfortunately, this isn't just a problem in industry. If the "why" of academia is to "educate the citizens of our society", I certainly wasn't doing that either. I was cranking out scientific publications, locked behind paywalls, filled with jargon that no one outside my field could understand. I wasn't "educating citizens" - I was providing cheap labor for my university.
Academia disappointed me. Industry (big tech) disappointed me. And all this disappointment has led me back to the most important question:
"Why" am I here?
"Why" is the most important question you'll answer in your career. Once you figure out your "why", it becomes so much easier to choose a employer (or become an employer) who aligns with your values. It also becomes harder to work with employers who have inauthentic missions. You can't choose a "why" based on it's palatability to other people. A "why", much like your career, needs to be authentic - it's yours, and only yours.
Lately, I've been thinking about where I want my career to go - not just this year or next year, or the next 5 or 10 years or 20 years, but for the remainder of my life. For whatever amount of time I'm gifted on this planet: Why am I here?
Oh boy... how do you answer such an existential question?
It's not easy. For me, I've thought back to beginning, back to high school, back to why I started studying developmental psychology in the first place. I didn't care about prestige or money. I never wanted to be the center of attention. But, I believed that childhood held the key to our well-being as adults. If we understood our past, we could live more peaceful lives in the present. We could make it to the end, with no regrets.
That's my "why".
Today, I'm focused on coaching PhDs on how to translate their skills and find careers that better support the rest of their lives. But my mission feels much bigger that this. I envision a world where everyone feels empowered to live authentically, free from the expectations and limitations of our past: PhDs, neurodivergent individuals, high-achieving womxn, anyone who is brave enough to choose themselves.
Life is so incredibly short. The biggest regret of the dying is, "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."
What's your why? What are your unique strengths? Why are you in your specific career? Why do you exist? Once you answer those questions, you'll know what's waiting for you after academia.
